A bear market is the mirror of a bull market: a sustained downtrend, lower highs and lower lows, typically persisting over weeks or months rather than a single sharp drop. Bear markets often (though not always) come with higher volatility than the bull run that preceded them. Sharp relief rallies inside an overall downtrend are common and can whipsaw naive trend-followers.
For systematic strategies, a bear regime is generally where survival matters more than offense: directional long strategies tend to stand down or reduce size, and market-neutral or defensive approaches (where available) become relatively more attractive.
zengtrade's regime engine and Risk Governor are both built around this asymmetry. Protecting capital in adverse regimes is treated as the priority, with compounding a secondary goal that only matters if the account survives to compound.
Educational content, not investment advice. zengtrade is paper-first and non-custodial.